A Question of Perspective
by Mara Greengrass
Summary: Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."--Philip K. Dick.


Title: A Question of Perspective  
Summary: "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."--Philip K. Dick.  
Written For: sheepfairy in the Eurekathon  
Prompt: Living in Eureka means that Jo and Zoe get some of the most awesome technology in the world to play around with. Author's Notes: I've slightly bent the prompt for purposes of my story, and I hope sheepfairy will forgive me :)

* * *

Before moving to Eureka, Zoe thought of reality as a fairly fixed point. Okay, it sucked a lot of the time, with her parents divorced, and her crappy school, but reality was pretty much...there.

But after her dad got caught in the therapy program, Zoe came to a new understanding that reality was kind of in your head. Sort of. It all had to do with quantum physics and she understood it, but trying to put it into words gave her a headache, so she just let it go and hoped she'd never have to explain it to her dad.

Besides, reality in Eureka was enough to keep her busy most of the time. There was her dad being all cool now and then and Lucas and hanging with Jo and debris falling from space and antigravity generators and stuff to build and break.

And speaking of Jo...

"Hey," Zoe said as she wandered into the tiny police station.

Zoe glanced up from the box sitting on her desk. "Hi, Zoe. Looking for your dad?"

"Nah." She shrugged. "Avoiding my homework." Then she looked guiltily around to make sure her father wasn't anywhere near.

"Don't worry, he's out on a call. Something about a family walking on ceilings."

"What've you got there?" Zoe leaned over Jo's desk, peering at the badly soldered wires and home-baked circuitry. "Not very professional, is it?"

"Eh, a couple of kids from the middle school got bored during recess."

"What does it do?" Zoe poked at a loose wire and tried to trace it back to its source.

"Not sure."

"Hmm." Zoe absently tucked the wire into place and...the walls of the station disappeared, replaced by a jungle. "Um...whoops?"

Jo's sigh was heartfelt. "Y'know, sometimes I really hate living in Eureka."

* * *

For a long moment, Jo and Zoe stared at each other, waiting to see what would happen. "Ooookay," Jo said eventually. "We haven't been attacked by giant robots yet, so I guess that's good."

"Why giant robots?"

"I mentioned the bit about middle school?"

"Point." Hands on her hips, Zoe turned a full circle, peering into a jungle that looked slightly fuzzy.

Zoe mentally shrugged. "Computer, end program." Nothing happened, except Jo gave her a strange look. "Hey, my dad was watching that Star Trek episode one time--"

"Your dad watches Star Trek?"

Zoe groaned. "Oh geez, don't tell him I told you. I'll be grounded for life."

"Not a word," Jo said, but the look in her eye promised pictures of Patrick Stewart appearing on her dad's desk. "So, any ideas on how to get out of here?"

"Why me?"

"You're the genius around here, not me," Jo said, ducking as a parrot flew over her head.

"Me? What? I..." She trailed off at the look in Jo's eyes. "Would you believe just a little bit genius?"

"No."

"Right." This seemed like a good time to change the subject, and she was aided by some large creature roaring in the distance. "So what do you think this is?"

"I thought we were going to be attacked by giant fighting robots. After that, I'm pretty much out of ideas."

Zoe couldn't decide if the jungle looked familiar. "I'm assuming kids probably didn't build a therapy program, so we probably don't have to come to terms with our fears or actualize anything."

"Glad to hear it," Jo said absently, peering down a path that darkened a few feet into the jungle. "I think we should go this way."

"Do you see something? An exit?" Zoe ran over to look.

"No," Jo said over her shoulder. "But if I stand here any longer, I'm going to start shooting."

Zoe rolled her eyes and followed the other woman into the dimness, scowling at tinny animal sounds that sounded like the background to a bad jungle video game. She barely avoided stepping in something that she didn't want to identify and got yelled at by a monkey.

This was not how she'd intended to spend the morning.

"Hey, do you smell coffee?" Zoe asked after a while. "Really good coffee?"

Jo stopped in her tracks. "Yeah. I had a cup of coffee from CafИ Diem when I came in this morning."

"Mmm, that's definitely cinnamon."

"Vincent insisted."

Zoe took a long breath and wished her dad didn't have his irrational fear of her drinking coffee. "Okay, so where'd you leave the coffee?" she asked, pushing aside a stiff leaf.

"On the desk. It was next to the phone."

"So, we've been walking for--"

"Ten minutes."

"Ten minutes and we haven't gotten away from your desk."

"Which means," Jo said, hand resting on her gun, "that we haven't gone anywhere."

"Yep." With a sigh, Zoe leaned against a tree and then jumped up, yelping. She paused and looked at Jo. "Uh, you can put away the gun."

"Right." Jo looked slightly embarrassed as she tucked it back in her belt. "What happened?"

Pointing at the tree, Zoe said, "There was a hand. Right there."

"Hmm, I don't see anything."

"Believe me, I felt it."

Very slowly, hand still on the gun, Jo reached out to the tree, touching it in various places. "Feels like a tree to me."

"Ooookay. So, no point in walking, since we're not getting anywhere." Scowling, Zoe looked around. "We need to figure out how those kids intended to turn it off."

"Any ideas how to do that?"

Zoe kicked at the dirt under her, decided nothing was going to grab her, and sat down. "Gimme me a minute. Some of us didn't get any coffee this morning." Propping her chin on her fist, she tried to think like a genius middle schooler.

"Y'know," Jo said, sitting down next to her, "your dad would be proud to know how smart you are."

"Yeah, but..." She searched for the words. "He'd be kinda hurt if he realized...the exact...number."

"And you think you've hurt him enough already."

She nodded.

"I think you're underestimating him."

Zoe shrugged, uncomfortable and embarrassed. "Let's just figure out how to get out of here."

"Okay."

The look Jo gave her was much too understanding, and Zoe looked down at the ground. "So what did these kids intend to build?" she wondered.

"I still think a video game makes the most sense, even in Eureka." Jo frowned. "But I only know first-person shooter games and this isn't one."

"Oh good." Zoe rubbed her forehead. "Okay, when I was looking at the machine, I saw several ports..."

"I just don't know what we can do from inside the machine. So far we haven't seen any puzzles we can solve or anything like that." Zoe glared at the jungle, which she was already heartily tired of.

"Maybe they hadn't gotten to writing that part yet."

"Then I don't know if there's anything we can do from inside."

"Great." Jo shook her head. "Could someone outside fix it?"

"Maybe. I don't know what they're seeing."

The jungle around them suddenly brightened and darkened and brightened again, making them both jump up and look around. "Ooookay," Zoe said. "That was weird."

The scene went dark and light again.

"Uh," Zoe said, "is someone out there?"

Another round of dark and light.

"D'you think it's part of the scenario?" Jo asked.

Zoe shook her head. "I think they'd be more likely to put in those giant robots."

"So why don't they just unplug it?"

"It's probably like Beverly's therapy thing. They don't--"

"Want to unplug us, because it could kill us or fry our brains."

"Yeah."

Jo sighed. "I wish that wasn't something like the third time this year I've said that."

Trying to ignore how ridiculous she felt, Zoe spoke to the air. "I think that when I reconnected the yellow wire, I put us into the first level of this...game or whatever. Maybe if we get to the last level, we might find the exit?"

They waited, holding their breath, then the scene flickered.

Zoe frowned. "I'm not sure that a desert island is a significant improvement, but it's different."

The scene flickered again.

"This had better not be it. I do not do mermaids," Jo said, crossing her arms.

"Agreed."

Another flicker.

Jo looked around. "Maybe we should sit down again. This might take a while."

"You have something against pirate ships?"

"Yes."

"Right."

* * *

Jo's head whipped around at a sound. "Is that--?"

Zoe leaned over and squinted. "No. Absolutely not. There is no way that it's tiny dancing penguins."

"Good. Thanks."

* * *

It was somewhere around the amazingly detailed replica of the TARDIS that Zoe propped her chin on her hand and said "This isn't getting us anywhere."

"Agreed."

Mind racing, she closed her eyes. "Wait wait wait, we've been going at this all wrong."

"In what way?"

"Look, if this thing is a...holodeck, then whoever's out there should be seeing what we're seeing, right? But then they'd be trapped in it too, so that doesn't make any sense."

"Okay." Jo nodded. "So what?"

"I think we're making this complicated when it's actually incredibly simple." She looked the fish swimming by, which looked like it was painted by a preschooler. "If the people out there aren't trapped in this too, then it's got to be in our brains."

"Riiiight. That's why they didn't just turn it off, remember?"

"So, how did the kids intend to get out?"

"I have no idea."

"Close your eyes and think 'off' at it."

"You're kidding."

"Just do it, okay?"

Zoe opened her eyes and stared at Jo over the home-baked virtual reality projector, then they both snatched their hands off it, looking at the police station with relief. Turning her head, Zoe saw Henry and her dad.

Henry grinned and her dad took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a second. "You guys okay?" he asked, putting on his professional face.

"Yes, sir," Jo said.

Zoe nodded, then stepped forward to hug her dad. Jo and Henry politely turned away to discuss how they were going to punish the boys who'd created the machine.

"You're really okay?"

"I'm fine," she said with a shrug. "It was kind of weird, but I didn't get hurt or anything."

"Glad to hear it. It was tough being on the outside and not knowing what you were seeing."

"Mostly I was pissed off. Although I was kinda worried when something grabbed me at the beginning."

Dad looked a little red.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Daaaaad!"

"Uh." He scratched his head, looking at the ceiling. "That was me, trying to get your attention."

"Wait...you were here then?"

"I got here not long after you turned it on, I think. You were standing still and talking to each other, but you couldn't hear me. I figured something was wrong, and that's when I called Henry to come help."

"You were here," she said again, her heartbeat sounding louder than the fake lions she'd been listening to not long before.

"Pretty much the whole time," he said, finally looking her straight in the eyes.

"I...Dad, I..."

"Zoe, I love you, you know that, right?"

She nodded.

"And I'm sorry if I ever made you feel you couldn't tell me anything. Anything." He swallowed, managing to look manly and hurt at the same time.

"My IQ is really 157," she said very fast. "I'm sorry I lied about it."

"157? Wow! That's amazing!" His eyes lit up and a gigantic grin spread across his face. How had she ever thought he'd be disappointed? she wondered, as he grabbed her for a gigantic bear hug.

* * *

Before moving to Eureka, Zoe thought of reality as a fairly fixed point, that is, something that generally sucked.

But hey, since coming to Eureka, she'd learned just how fluid reality could be. There'd been a heck of a lot of near-death experiences, plenty of social flubs, and a ton of weirdness.

But y'know...sometimes reality was just awesome.

--end--


End file.
